The nuts and bolts revisited

For people reading this blog recently, it is about grocery shopping and feeding your family on the cheap.

It takes a three pronged approach. Shop wisely, plan and organize, and cook from scratch.

Step one: Develop your own recipe book using sources of protein that are the least expensive. This is getting harder because of the drought making meat prices skyrocket.

Step Two: Never pay full price. Unless you have a photographic memory, you need a small spiral notebook, or a spread sheet of the foods that are your staples: What they are, what size package they come in, and how much you paid, when , and where.
For us it is diced tomatoes, canned beans, some canned veggies, refried beans, instant mashed potatoes, and pasta and pasta sauce.

Find the lowest price, and when it goes on sale for the lowest price buy as many as your budget will allow, as many as the store will let you buy, or as many as you can safely use before they expire. If it is something that I use once a week, I keep a supply of 24. If I only use it once a month, I keep 5 or 6. Pasta has a eight year shelf life. I just keep by bin full.

Each week I survey the adds. I take a sheet of computer paper from the waste basket, and divide it into four. Mark each quadrant with the name of the store. We are fortunate to have all four stores within a four mile radius and I can hit more than one in a shopping trip without back tracking. we also have dollar stores and the bank on the way.

Write down on each store's section, what is on sale cheap that you can use to make dinner, or that you need to stock. Now cross off anything that is higher priced elsewhere and anything that you already have enough of. You can now assess which two stores that you are going to visit. Stick to your list. Get in and get out. the longer you are in a store, the more you are going to spend.

Step three:

Cook from scratch. There are a few ready mades that are cheaper than making them from scratch. A few things are just too much bother to make. I take time into consideration. Figure your savings and divide it by your time spent cooking it from scratch. Sometimes I make 32.00 an hour.
We talk about techniques to get you out of the kitchen fast. IF you can set it and forget it and then go on to do laundry etc. You haven't spent much time in the kitchen.

Remember if you spend more time on the front end of the "Get a meal on the Table" train, and less time on the back end, you will be better off. Noone is "paying you to cook, but you are being "paid" well for shopping wisely. Half of the USDA 2009 stats for a family of four is about 75.00 a week. If you spend an extra hour shopping, you have made 75.00 an hour. Not to Shabby.

Thats pretty much the sumation of it all. The added bonus of stocking is that you never have to worry about getting to the store because you are out of food. You are prepared for a disaster. That can be that you are to sick with the flu to go to the store, or its snowing and you can't get to the store.

To the minimalists out there, if you can afford to buy your groceries from the whole paycheck store and burn seventy five dollars a week and feel good about it, then go for it, IT"S YOUR MONEY!

For the rest of us, that extra money might mean you can afford orthadontics or a college fund for the kids, a much needed vacation, or just have a piece of mind knowing that you have some more money in the bank.

Thanks for stopping by

Please share with a friend.

Jane